


faking artifacts

by finkpishnets



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:44:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: Wherever they're going, they're taking the long way there.





	faking artifacts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pokedexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pokedexed/gifts).



> happy holidays, lara! i really loved all of your prompts, but 'ripple effect' stood out to me. i hadn't heard it before, fell in love with it, and then proceeded to take it both far too literally and dismember it aesthetically. i hope you like it anyway. 
> 
> this is set in a very handwavy time in canon (since i haven't watched the show in over half a season), sometime after simon becomes a daylighter but not during any particular life threatening event. warning for complete fluff, oh my gosh, i intended this to be at least a _little_ angsty, i have no idea what happened, i'm so sorry. 
> 
> (also, disclaimer, i am not from america and have never been to these places, so apologies for extreme vagueness and the obvious use of google.)
> 
> the biggest thanks in the world to [victoria](http://bookwhipped.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this for me, but mostly for putting up with my atrocious time management skills and love affair with commas (and to [thisissirius](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/pseuds/thisissirius), always).
> 
> HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

  
  


_I wanna take you in a caravan  
To the edge of the ocean._

[ **ripple effect** , scott helman.]

 

 

Simon pushes his sunglasses up his nose and tilts his head towards the late afternoon light, feeling it flicker through the canopies as it casts interesting shadows over the dashboard. Jace seems oblivious, eyes on the road ahead, expression dour, and Simon would ask what's wrong except he’s pretty sure the answer is just Jace being Jace. Also, when he’d said “Why so serious?”, like, an hour ago, Jace had thrown an empty soda can at his head, _so_ …

The engine makes its third unsettling noise of the day, and Jace shoots him a glare before he can comment. Simon doesn’t know where Jace even _found_ a vintage camper van in Downworlder New York, and he spends about five minutes wondering if Jace had had a breakdown and bought it from craigslist for the _aesthetics_ before he finds the rental papers in the glove box along with two packets of stale beef jerky and a half empty bottle of navy blue nail polish and relaxes.

It’s all very _Clary_ , which is only slightly more comforting than messed up.

“Where are we going?” Simon asks for the tenth time, and predicts Jace’s shrug before it comes. “I’m, like, sixty percent sure this count as abduction in the state of New York.”

“You got in the van,” Jace says, and Simon scoffs, putting his feet up on the dash and blinking innocently when his boots leave marks.

“Sure, blame the victim,” he says. Jace responds with his middle finger.

Simon has no idea where they’re going, or why, and he’s not entirely sure they aren’t going to end up stranded in the middle of nowhere when the van inevitably gives up the ghost, but _this_ — throwing around insults like a football and not letting them hit (not in a long time) — this feels weirdly _normal_.

It’s possible he already has Stockholm syndrome.

He grabs his phone from the cupholder, types _How long before you start sympathizing with your captor?_ , hesitates over Clary’s contact details, and sends it to Magnus instead.

Ten minutes later Magnus replies with _Who is this?_ and _Nevermind, just remember, padded handcuffs are your friend_ and Simon regrets every life choice he’s ever made.

He sends Alec a link to Magnus’ Grindr profile and turns off his phone.

The speakers start playing the opening ukulele chords of a Carly Rae Jepsen song, the perfect mix of NYC Music freshman and hipster chic, and Simon frowns down at the CD player in concern.

“What the hell are we listening to?”

“I don’t know,” Jace says, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, less in time with the music, and more in a general display of frustration. “I thought you liked this kind of thing? Quiet shit, or whatever.”

“Sure,” Simon says, “I like _acoustic_ music. This sounds like you picked it up at your local Starbucks.”

Jace’s expression twists into something suspiciously guilty.

“Wow,” Simon says. “ _Wow_.”

Jace scowls and smashes a button on the CD deck until it jumps to a crackly local station. “Whatever,” he says, and Simon feels bad for about thirty seconds before he remembers Jace has basically abducted him and proceeds to loudly sing along to the next five top forty hits in a row.

 

 

**~**

 

 

They stop at a campsite near state lines, and Simon eyes the trees warily whilst Jace pulls grocery bags from the back of the van. 

“We need fire wood,” Jace says, and Simon blinks at him.

“Doesn’t the van have a stove? You didn’t just buy beans, right? I know you have this whole Lone Ranger thing going on, but it might be time for an intervention…”

Jace rolls his eyes. “For _heat_ , moron.”

“Well,” Simon says, looking through their rations just in case he’s right and Jace really _is_ trying to live out his childhood cowboy dreams, “good luck with that.”

Jace stares at him, unimpressed. “Your vampire strength might, oh, I don’t know, _come in handy_.”

“Yeah, no,” Simon says. “You’re the one that wanted to do all this machismo bullshit.” He pulls out a bottle of vodka from one of the bags. “Aha! _I_ am going to make Bloody Mary’s.”

Jace grits his teeth and wanders off, muttering something that sounds a lot like _‘If Clary had asked…’_ under his breath, and Simon sighs and sets about mixing him a drink without O-neg to make up for it. He doesn’t feel _that_ bad, so he makes it a Cosmo because the look on Jace’s face will be priceless.

When Jace comes back he’s stripped down to his undershirt, sweat making it stick to his back, and his hair falling into his eyes. He drops the chopped wood in a pile, and Simon coughs, turning away to grab their drinks, and passing Jace’s over with a grin.

Jace takes a long gulp and doesn’t even have the grace to grimace.

By the time night’s properly fallen, they’re sat in rickety camp chairs around a healthy fire, Jace eating a sandwich as big as his face and Simon steadily emptying the vodka bottle.

It’s _nice_ , in a weird, movie kind of way. The stars are a bright patchwork between the treetops, and the flames are hypnotising enough to put someone to sleep. The temperature’s dropping slowly, but for now the heat of the day’s still clinging to the air, leaving Jace in his t-shirt and Simon content.

“So, really,” Simon says, “where are we going?”

Jace sighs, reaching for his Cosmo — his third, and Simon’s going to survive on that alone for weeks — and drinking half of it before answering. “I don’t know,” he says. “The beach, maybe?”

It’s neither a question nor an afterthought. _The beach_ might be as far as the trail of thought goes, but it’s a solid enough one on its own, even if Simon doesn’t understand why.

“I haven’t been to the beach in years,” Simon says, trying to keep his tone light and knowing it comes across too awkwardly gentle. Surprisingly, Jace doesn’t freeze up.

“Me either.” He looks like he’s going to say something else, then changes his mind, screwing up the paper towel he’s been using as a napkin and tossing it into the fire. “I’m taking the bed.”

“Rude.”

“You’re a vampire,” Jace says. “Suck it up.”

“ _Hilarious_ ,” Simon says. “No, really.”

Once Jace disappears inside the van, Simon tries to get comfortable, and briefly hopes that being a vampire means he’s, like, an apex predator and therefore _won’t_ be eaten by bears, wolves, or worse, mosquitos.

He’s still not sure whey he’s _here_ , and he doubts Jace has any intention of sharing. There’s an eighty percent chance it’s to do with Clary, because their lives are _always_ to do with Clary, though it’s just as likely that Jace hit his head too hard in a fight recently and temporarily lost his senses. 

Although—

It’s _not_ really that strange. They’ve been spending a lot of time in each other’s orbit lately, consciously or not, and Simon hasn’t actively acknowledged it, but being around Jace is somehow, _unbelievably_ , one of the few times he feels _normal_ anymore. 

Their lives are a mess, everything’s one battle after the next, but the fact that Simon’s sat looking at the _vintage camper van_ Jace rented, headed to a hypothetical beach in Somewhere, America, is easily the most surreal thing that’s happened to him in months.

He kind of loves it.

He shuts his eyes and pretends he’s going to sleep, listening closely to the animals in the woods and tracking time by the steady pulse of Jace’s heartbeat.

 

 

**~**

 

 

Wherever they’re going, they’re taking the long way there.

They get a late start, and the sun’s high in the sky by the time they pass through Connecticut and into Rhode Island. They stop for lunch at a roadside cafe Simon’s mom would describe as ‘quaint’, and Jace puts on the charm for the sweet, elderly lady that runs the place, earning himself a slice of chocolate cake that would put anyone into a diabetic coma, and smirking at Simon when Simon rolls his eyes.

It starts raining once they’re back on the road, and Simon takes his boots off and curls his feet up on the seat under him, resting his head against the window and watching the world pass by. Occasionally he feels Jace’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t call him out on it, and Jace doesn’t complain when Simon switches the station to nonstop golden oldies. 

It takes Simon a while to place the warm, soft feeling that inspires as contentment. 

“Hey,” Simon says, nudging Jace’s arm with his socked foot, “tell me a story.”

Jace frowns, but he doesn’t look upset, just surprised. “What kind of story?”

“I don’t know,” Simon says. “One with a happy ending. And dragons.” 

Jace smiles, small and honest, and Simon captures it to memory, rare as it is. “Dragons don’t usually lead to a happy ending.”

“Then make one up,” Simon says, and he’s only mostly joking.

“Okay,” Jace says, after a moment, and Simon smiles, closing his eyes and settling in for the journey.

 

 

**~**

 

 

The sky’s burnt pink by the time they stop. When Simon skips past a string of angry texts from Alec and what he assumes is a curse from Magnus, his phone says they’re just outside of Portland.

He sends Clary a cursory text — just a _‘Hey, on a spontaneous road trip. Still dead but not the bad kind. Talk later.’_ — in case she gets it in her head he’s been abducted by someone a lot scarier than Jace, and because it’s what he would have done before they went and made things complicated with short-lived, disastrous attempts at romance. Jace watches him type the message but doesn’t say anything so Simon assumes it’s not a secret.

They walk for a while, bundled up in jackets against the sea air, Jace for practicality and Simon for appearances. By the time they reach the ocean, Simon can almost feel the cold, and he walks closer to Jace, letting their arms brush.

The sight of the beach is so dramatic it makes Simon stop in his tracks. The waves are crashing against the shore, dark and powerful, and he can see the lighthouse in the distance, stood on jagged rocks, like something out of a painting,

His whole world is full of drama — demons, and angels, and blood; New York City by night — but there’s a breathtaking _focus_ here, a startling reality trapped in a moment. It’s stark and dangerous and _beautiful_ , and Simon feels more alive that he has in a long time.

He can feel Jace’s eyes on his face, then his fingers tangling with Simon’s, and somewhere in the back of his mind Simon knows that it should be strange, should be out of place, except right now it’s exactly what he needs.

“It feels like magic, doesn’t it?” Jace says, and Simon’s relieved to hear his own awe echoed there.

“It feels like _more_ ,” Simon says, and Jace nods.

They stand and watch the waves roll out until the last of the sunlight’s melted away, and then walk slowly back to the van. Jace is still holding his hand, and Simon doesn’t want to break the spell by saying something, but his head is starting to spin with questions.

Jace tugs him inside the van and there’s an awkward dance as they try and manoeuvre the small space, but eventually Simon’s sitting on the bed, back against the wall, and Jace is sliding in next to him, all elbows and knees, a break in his usually graceful mask.

Simon wants to ask why Jace brought him here, wants to say _'thank you’_ , wants to not say anything at all in case this turns out not to be real.

“Did you kidnap me and bring me to the beach to seduce me?” he says instead of any of that, and then squeezes his eyes shut, wondering if he can reverse time just by wishing hard enough.

Jace freezes next to him. Simon can feel the tension everywhere they touch, and it makes him even more aware of just how close they’re sitting. 

He wants to apologize, make a joke, run away with every bit of his vampire speed, but Jace is between him and the door and it would involve even _more_ touching in order to make his escape, and _geez_ —

“Is it working?” Jace says, eventually. 

“Um,” Simon says, opening his eyes in time to see the flush that spreads over Jace’s neck. “What?”

Jace shrugs, meeting Simon’s eye defensively, and Simon’s pretty sure his brain whites out for a moment.

“No,” he says, “sorry. Nope. No shrugging. This is one of those times when you’re _definitely_ going to have to use words. Preferably ones with more than four letters.”

“Fuck you,” Jace says, pointedly, and Simon can’t help his desperate laugh.

“Yes,” he says, choking on air, “that seems to be what we’re talking about.”

Jace turns even redder. “I just thought you’d like it,” he says harshly, eyes dropping to where his fingers are fisted in the bedsheets.

Behind the brusque exterior he looks _scared_ , and Simon didn’t mean to do that, didn’t know he _could_ , and _geez_ , isn’t that a revelation. It doesn’t make any sense, except that really, _truly_ , underneath it all—?

It _does_.

“Okay,” Simon says, thinking about insults meant to make Jace’s eyes spark and touches he can’t forget. “Okay.”

Jace looks up from beneath his lashes, and _wow_ , yes, Simon _gets it_ already. “Okay?” he asks, and it’s almost vulnerable and completely terrifying.

“Yeah,” Simon says. “I mean, no, we definitely need to talk about this, which is going to suck for both of us — mostly you — but in the most general terms…Yeah. Okay.”

Jace’s eyes flick over his face, searching, and Simon sees the moment he recognizes the honesty there. Simon has no idea what he’s doing; it feels like the beach, dangerous and unfamiliar, but starkly real.

When Jace kisses him, it’s the crash of waves against the shore.

 

 

**~**

 

 

They fall asleep curled up on top of the sheets, waking up the next morning to sore limbs and angry stomachs, and Jace makes toast and heats blood whilst Simon frantically brushes his teeth. 

Simon would be unsure the night before even happened if he couldn’t hear the unsteady rush of Jace’s heart, and it’s enough of an unfair advantage that he kisses Jace first, just to even up the playing ground.

Jace doesn’t seem to mind.

They spend the morning walking along the shorefront, and Simon snaps some pictures to show Clary when they get back. They don’t talk much, but it’s not an avoidance kind of silence, just a comfortable one. 

Which, actually, is the weirdest thing to happen in the last twenty-four hours.

“I can’t believe you abducted me instead of just asking me out like a normal person, asshole,” Simon says to make up for it.

Jace raises an eyebrow. “Feel better?”

“Yes,” Simon says. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“God, you’re such a nerd,” Jace says. “Why do I even _like_ you?”

“No,” Simon says, “but that’s a really good question. You should make a list and tell it to me on the way back.”

“Wow,” Jace says, “it’s almost like you just confused me with Clary.”

Simon snorts hard enough to make his nose run, and Jace pulls a face and takes a step away from him.

“Okay, well this was fun. Shortest relationship ever, but fun.”

“Oh _please_ ,” Simon says. “I drink blood to survive; if that doesn’t gross you out, nothing will.”

“Touché,” Jace says, but he still refuses to hold Simon’s hand again until he’s washed it.

They drive into town for lunch, and Simon laughs himself hoarse watching Jace try and reverse park the camper van, complaining about small roads and tiny spaces like he’s not a New Yorker through and through. By the time they actually find somewhere to eat (and after Simon’s left an apology note on a Toyota on Jace’s behalf) Simon’s cheeks are aching enough to remind him how long it’s been since he last smiled this much.

“Thanks,” he says, and Jace looks up from his menu confused. “For abducting me, I mean.”

“Oh for…” Jace says. “I called you and asked if you were free, and you said yes.”

“Well, sure,” Simon says, “but it was under false pretences.”

“Uh huh,” Jace says. “If that helps you sleep at night.” 

“No,” Simon says, and wiggles his eyebrows ridiculously, “but I know what _would_.”

Jace snorts water up his nose, so the look he gets from the passing waitress is totally worth it.

 

 

**~**

 

 

Simon takes over the driving as they head back to New York, finding Jace’s phone on the floor under the seat when he goes to adjust it, and Jace sighs but obediently takes it, scrolling through his messages with a scowl.

“Did you break up Magnus and Alec?” he asks, and Simon frowns.

“What? No? Maybe?” He thinks about it. “Shit, Magnus is going to kill me.”

“Not if Alec gets there first,” Jace says loyally, and Simon rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, no, the immortal warlock scares me more than your bff, no offence.”

Jace scoffs and goes back to his phone, eventually tossing it over his shoulder into the depths of the van. Simon resigns himself to having a very uncommunicative relationship in his future.

“Hey,” Jace says after a while, poking Simon in the shoulder. Simon’s about to complain, except Jace slides his hand softly down Simon’s arm until his hand finds Simon’s over the gearstick, and it becomes something disgustingly cute. 

“Hey,” he says instead, and pretends he’s not smiling like an idiot.

“Your turn,” Jace says.

“For what?” Simon says, confused.

“To tell me a story,” Jace says, and Simon thinks about the reality they’re headed back to, the unstoppable moment they just left, and the stupid, awkward, _overwhelming_ way Jace has always made him feel. 

“Okay,” he says, and makes sure to give it a happy ending.

 

 


End file.
